My wishes to all who read this for a happy and prosperous New Year!
All sorts of management experts and gurus have written extensively about people versus process. They will tell you that it is imperative to develop processes to control every aspect of your business. And Lean Manufacturing certainly leans VERY heavily on process over people, so you might have guessed that I support that view too.
But most small businesses were built by a person, or small group of people, who had better ideas on how their business might be done. Where would we be today if Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Dean Kamen had been stuck with process?
My opinion actually falls midway between these extremes. Processes need to be in place to smooth transitions between employees as they move up of out of your company. But it is incumbent on your people to improve the processes that they control while in a particular job or position.
Too many of my clients have key employees who are the only ones in the company that know all the foibles of the molder, which vendors to go to for the best terms, or where all the job files are on the server. Even should these employees be happy and loyal, what happens to your company if they were to be hit by a bus on the way home this week? The “Bus Principle”, as I call it, means that you need to rethink the people versus process debate.
It is vital, for the ongoing health of your company, to be able to transition people in and out of positions in your business with the least interruption and delay. Highly skilled and valuable employees often get stuck in a particular position when they want to advance, because you feel they cannot be spared from what they do because they know too much to be spared or trained elsewhere. This employee is likely to eventually leave. Having good in-house processes makes it less risky for you to allow your people to transition.
But process tends to be stagnant and limiting. “We’ve always done it this way” is the death of innovation and growth. So the processes you establish to smooth your transitions MUST remain flexible and fluid while an employee occupies a position. You need to encourage your employees to be constantly improving and innovating the processes that guide their job. They need to take over a new position under the guidance of the exisisting process, improve and innovate, make it their own, then record the improved process regularly to guide the next person who will do their job.
This balance between people and process, if nurtured and encouraged, will help keep your business efficient and competitive, while insuring that loos or transition of employees will not set you back more than absolutely necessary.
As always, I invite you to comment here or by e-mail on this or any of my posts. rbagnall@consultingwoodworker.com
I can be reached through Linkedin as well: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphbagnall
